My academic dissertation "Bidrag till Fennoskandiens språkliga förhistoria i tid och rum" ("Spatiotemporal Contributions to the Linguistic Prehistory of Fennoscandia") is an interdisciplinary study of the linguistic prehistory of Northern Europe chiefly in the Iron Age (ca. 700 BC―AD 1200), but also to some extent in the Bronze Age (ca. 1700―700 BC) and the Early Finnish Middle Ages (ca. AD 1200―1323). The disciplines represented in this study are Germanistics, Nordistics, Finnougristics, history and archaeology. The language-forms studied are Proto-Germanic, Proto-Scandinavian, Proto-Finnic and Proto-Sami. This dissertation uses historical-comparative linguistics and especially loanword study to examine the relative and absolute chronology of the sound changes that have taken place in the proto-forms of the Germanic, Finnic and Samic languages. Phonetic history is the basis of historical linguistics studying the diachronic development of languages. To my knowledge, this study is the first in the history of the disciplines mentioned above to examine the systematic dating of the phonetic development of these proto-languages in relation to each other. In addition to the dating and relating of the phonetic development of the proto-languages, I study Fennoscandian toponyms. The oldest datable and etymologizable place-names throw new light on the ethnic history and history of settlement of Fennoscandia. For instance, I deal with the etymology of the following place-names: Ahvenanmaa/Åland, Eura(joki), Inari(järvi), Kemi(joki), Kvenland, Kymi(joki), Sarsa, Satakunta, Vanaja, Vantaa and Ähtäri.

My dissertation shows that Proto-Germanic, Proto-Scandinavian, Proto-Finnic and Proto-Sami all date to different periods of the Iron Age. I argue that the present study along with my earlier published research also proves that a (West-)Uralic language – the pre-form of the Finnic and Samic languages – was spoken in the region of the present-day Finland in the Bronze Age, but not earlier than that. In the centuries before the Common Era, Proto-Sami was spoken in the whole region of what is now called Finland, excluding Lapland. At the beginning of the Common Era, Proto-Sami was spoken in the whole region of Finland, including Southern Finland, from where the Sami idiom first began to recede. An archaic (Northwest-)Indo-European language and a subsequently extinct Paleo-European language were likely spoken in what is now called Finland and Estonia, when the linguistic ancestors of the Finns and the Sami arrived in the eastern and northern Baltic Sea region from the Volga-Kama region probably at the beginning of the Bronze Age. For example, the names Suomi ʻFinlandʼ and Viro ʻEstoniaʼ are likely to have been borrowed from the Indo-European idiom in question. (Proto-)Germanic waves of influence have come from Scandinavia to Finland since the Bronze Age. A considerable part of the Finnic and Samic vocabulary is indeed Germanic loanwords of different ages which form strata in these languages. Besides mere etymological research, these numerous Germanic loanwords make it possible to relate to each other the temporal development of the language-forms that have been in contact with each other. That is what I have done in my extensive dissertation, which attempts to be both a detailed and a holistic treatise.

52 comments:

This makes sense because of the Corded Ware and Comb Ceramic cultures. Mesolithic continuum for Finno-Urgics anywhere in my mind is crazy because they have a big chunk of farmer ancestry and the vast majority of their maternal lineages are of farmer origin. Also, there is plenty of mtDNA from northeast European hunter gatherers, proving they are not the main mothers of modern Finno-Urgics. Some people though ignore these facts and stubbornly fight for Mesolithic Finno-Urgics.

I have previously pointed out the importance of Germanic loan word studies in the region - with (admittedly spotty) past work showing a sequence of loan words first into the newly-arriving Finno-Urugic languages, then into the Baltic languages, and only very late into Slavic (Polish) languages. Those works supported the idea of an early IE language in N Central Europe developing into a pre-proto Germanic very early on, in agreement with a split into Celtic and Italic at the same general ~1,500 BCE time frame, stretching far into the East and thus with early Uralic and later Baltic contacts, but less so with Slavic contacts in what is now SE Poland and the Ukraine.

This is just the same old result: there are some ancient (ie closer to proto-Germanic than to medieval Swedish) Germanic placenames on the Southwestern coast in the one specific section of the coast that never had a Swedish population. Germanic placenames in Finnish are often poor evidence of a Germanic population since there are so many Germanic loanwords in Finnish and a word for, say, "river" can be borrowed and transferred to a placename.

It is a horrible distortion to claim that this means that "Indo-Europeans preceded Finno-Ugrians in Finland" since well over 90 % of Finnish territory still lacks any trace of Indo-European placenames and the evidence for Indo-Europeans in inland Finland is still not there (while there is evidence of some non-FU, non-IE language). The only part of Finland where we do find traces of a previous IE population that was likely absorbed by Finns is still limited to the provinces of Satakunta and Varsinais-Suomi ie the southwesternmost coast where the gap in Swedish speaking towns is:

Shades of blue = some amount of Swedish population; old Germanic placenames are found precisely on the gap area between Swedish towns on the coast. Germanic place names are mostly found in strategic locations like river mouths which might indicate economic or military dominance by a small number of Germanic speakers - or it might be something else.

He also presents no new evidence at all for his claim that there was a more archaic form of Indo-European spoken in Finland besides the fact that Finnish seems to have loanwords from some more archaic IE language than proto-Germanic. He has no placenames besides his proposed etymology for Suomi which today means "Finland" but it's questionable whether that even was a place name historically and it didn't mean originally mean all of Finland - at the start of written history it was the name of one of the groups that later fused into "Finns" and only referred to a very small corner of the coast.

It's unlikely that his etymology for "Suomi" will become any more accepted than the dozens of other proposed etymologies (many of which also consider it some sort of an IE loan). His claim of Germanic predating Finnic in Finland rests on the claim that it would be a continuation of an earlier form of IE (and not an invader from Sweden into already Finnic territory) and the evidence he presents for this will be torn to shreds.

I dont see it as a "massive distortion", it seems to be in line with other resarch, such as that by Jaakko Häkkinen. In other words, there was a proto-Germanic substrate present in Finland as the predecessor of the Finnish language arrived in Finland.

"I dont see it as a "massive distortion", it seems to be in line with other resarch, such as that by Jaakko Häkkinen. In other words, there was a proto-Germanic substrate present in Finland as the predecessor of the Finnish language arrived in Finland."

Ah, then we can say that Finno-Ugrics predated Indo-Europeans in Europe. After all, northern Russia is in Europe and it definitely shows a Finno-Ugric substrate predating Slavic, therefore Finno-Ugrics predated Indo-Europeans in Europe. Right? No, not right, this is a massive distortion.

It definitely is a massive distortion to claim that Germanic speakers predated Finno-Ugrics in Finland when 95 % of Finland's territory shows no sign of Indo-Europeans at all (and instead shows signs of some paleo-Europeans).

We know that southwestern coastal dialects are heavily Germanic influenced: these are not new discoveries and this cited thesis provides nothing besides the same short list of place names identified in the 19th century. We still don't know whether those Germanic speakers actually predated Finnic on the coast and we don't know whether they had any demographic presence outside of strategically located towns on river mouths since those are the only places where we actually find ancient Germanic place names.

The ancient Germanic loanwords in Finnish start from words like kuningas, king; ruhtinas, prince or some kind of noble; valta, power or rulership; tuomita, to judge etc. These suggest proto-Germanic dominance in the interaction so why don't Western Finns speak Germanic now? A small group of Germanic invaders who later got Finnicized because they were demographically outnumbered fits the loanwords much better.

In most parts of Finland we do not find the same traces of Germanics and we certainly know that Finno-Ugric predated Germanic in most of Finland since it seems that Germanic never reached 95 % of Finland. This is rather relevant for genetics blogs as most of today's Finns descend from the eastern and inland populations that are not similarily Germanic influenced and if you visit eg Helsinki the population is a heavily eastern-biased sample of Finns.

At low resolution, there seems to be a fair consistency between geography, language, and genetic characteristics. But, at higher resolution, it seems clear that there is a large variation in how these groupings work out. The Basques with their unique language and their high frequency of R1b Y chromosome haplotype are a particularly strong example. Though their geographic affinity and their autosomal gene affinity with the Sardinians seems strong. They don't share language or a distribution of Y chromosome haplotypes. In the Caucuses which may be a source for some of the European populations there is a particularly wide variation of languages. The thousand genome data includes a large number of Finns. At least in the part I have looked at, they seem to group strongly with the British. Lactase persistence is another well studied genetic phenomena shared by Western Europeans and Indians. The Finns have a particularly high frequency of this gene.

Also, there is plenty of mtDNA from northeast European hunter gatherers, proving they are not the main mothers of modern Finno-Urgics

There are Finno-Ugric languages but no Finno-Ugric people. For example, Germans and Hungarians are genetically closer than Finns and Hungarians. Also, hunter-gatherers were almost exclusively U5. U5 is believed to be the oldest mtDNA haplogroup in Europe. And from modern populations, who have the highest frequency of U5 by a landslide? Finns, Estonians and Sami.

"This would appear to work well with the dating of the signature Y-chromosome haplogroup of Finno-Ugrians. "

Perhaps so, but you'd have to be prepared to make the (possibly unwarranted ) assumption that Hg R1a is "indo -European " and N3 "Uralic". However, I'm not sure that at this stage we can even definitely say from where R1a reached Eastern Europe (of course Central Asia is the current strong candidate); whilst accepting that an east to west spread of N is more or less clear.

Nevertheless, even if the apparent distribution of the aforementioned genetic makers broadly coincide with the languages, there is no compelling evidence at present that they were contemporaneous with the expansion of the respective languages with which they're linked.

As I alluded to above , I suspect that *both* FU and IE spread into Northern Europe more recently than generally posited , and quite probably much later than the initial arrival of R1 and N3...

Have to say I agree with jaakkeli on some vital points. Among other his asssessment of Heikkiläs analyzis. One of them being this:

(Quote jaakkeli:)

"It's unlikely that his etymology for "Suomi" will become any more accepted than the dozens of other proposed etymologies (many of which also consider it some sort of an IE loan). His claim of Germanic predating Finnic in Finland rests on the claim that it would be a continuation of an earlier form of IE (and not an invader from Sweden into already Finnic territory) and the evidence he presents for this will be torn to shreds."

Regrettably, I would have to agree.

The reason seems to be that the basis of the analyzis should have been substantially strengthened, with further studies of the material he tries to comprehend and process.

Otherwise I have to add that I actually appreciate his effort - trying to solve an issue that's both stigmatized and dumbed by past ignorance when it comes to the common phonems and semantics of the uralic and scandinavian languages. The possibility of a common source of origin (at the stage of proto-uralic/proto-germanic)may be a vital clue to understand the origin of both these northernmost languages at the Eurasian continent - as both may seem to go back to paleolitic time - perhaps as a bilingual phenomenon within the northern Eurasians of the Epi-paleolithic.

Thus the question Heikkiläs rises is indeed very vital, to better understand the origin of BOTH these languages.

The repport - and especially its headline conclusion - rests on some rather scetcy premisses, based on some major assumptions that are rather problematic.

Any non-linguist that wants to put Heikkiläs point of view in a further perspective may check on Kallervi Wiiks and Mario Alineis theories about the very same matters.

If any of them are ritgh - the uralic 'proto-language' seem to have naeighboured the gottonic/proto-germans - since the very mesolithics.

According to pofessor of archaology, ilton Nunez, there is hardly ANY trace of a sunbstantial immigration to Finland since the first populations arrived after Ice-Age. Presumely that would be WHG, as they were descendants of the Hamburg/Ahrensburg/Swidrien split - into the western respectively the eastern Baltic, at the end of Younger Dryas. From this split we seem to have the uralic speakers in Finland and eastern Europe, while a german form seems to have developed west of N-S-line conecting the Botnic Bay with Aaland, Gotland, Bornholm and Wizla.

I doubt that we can really talk about a proto-Germanic language in Finland before the Bronze Age. Proto-Germanic developed in Denmark, South Sweden and North Germany, and Finland is not easily accessible because of the Baltic Sea. According to Wikipedia, ”It is possible that Indo-European speakers arrived on the plains of southern Sweden and Jutland, the center of the Urheimat or "original home" of the Germanic peoples, prior to the Nordic Bronze Age, which began about 4500 years ago. This is the only area where no pre-Germanic place names have been found.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Germanic_language)

If we claim that people spoke an IE language in Finland during the Comb-Ceramic Culture, we definitely have to dump the idea of northern IE languages being connected with Bronze Age innovations and Corded Ware culture.

In addition, I must say that I do not understand why all word roots that are attested in Scandinavia, Lapland and Finland must be Indo-European loan words. In my opinion, it is more probable that words that are only found in the north are palaeo-European words. Moreover, we cannot claim that all words that have a cognate word in Germanic languages or in a single Germanic dialect must be Germanic loans. Part of the words may have been borrowed from Sami or from Finnish to Scandinavian languages/dialects. On the other hand, many postulated Germanic loans are found not only in Germanic languages but also in Baltic languages, and neither in this case it is so obvious that the source must be a Germanic language.

From the paper:"An archaic (Northwest-)Indo-European language and a subsequently extinct Paleo-European language were likely spoken in what is now called Finland and Estonia, when the linguistic ancestors of the Finns and the Sami arrived in the eastern and northern Baltic Sea region from the Volga-Kama region probably at the beginning of the Bronze Age."

Built on an old and rather hairy presumption, that the "proto-Finns" came out of the Volga Knee. Todays overall genetic have long since encountered that opinion (Willems 1996, etc.).

Accordning to Gyllensten (2005) it is the Sami-motive (C,Z) that arrived from the Volga-Ural area, as of 4.700+ years ago - TO northern Fenno-Scandia.

Today that's re-confoirmed from 5000 yrs old dna from Oleni Ostrov in northern Carelia - where the C was deducted, among the regular europids.

The repport in question gets BOTH of them wrong. Consequently he draws the opposite to the natural conclusion - that the Finnish language was there from the start - then the mongol-altaic Samis arrived, adapted to the eastern Uralc but still keeping a substrate of their mongolian/altaic.

To solve the vaacum his unhistorical assumption creates the author invents a 'hereto unknown' and 'distinct paleoltihic language', that died out with the arrival of the Samis.

To prov his outline he turns to fundamental speculations without any empirical background whatsoever - claiming to an uralian time-line of "sound-change" that is purely hypothetical.

Secondly he adresses the "etymological substances" as if he - or anbody else for that matter - can trace the etymology of a language that no-one still have heard.

Conclusively: Who's fooling who?

This is nothing but a young linguist modelling a theory to fit the consented time-lines and outlines of some outdated archeology and over-rated historians.

(1) Your use of "area" in a country whose population density varies by three orders of magnitude between regions is useless.

(2) This was even more true during the beginnings of agriculture. On a long-term averaged climate basis, agriculture then was only sustainable in what is now Finland along its S and SW coast and rivers, and only in conjunction with fishing and trade with the south. Thus, from the advent of agriculture until Urugic-speaking Bronze-Age invasion, almost all people lived just there.

Andrew,

Nice write-up. Just one comment:

The Corded Ware Culture (CWC) IMO is too early to make a distinction between pre-proto Germanic and pre-proto Baltic. Also, Baltic itself is known to be intrusive to the Baltic area from further SE and likely more recent - perhaps related to middle/ late Bronze Age movements. This is also supported by proto- or early Germanic loanwords, which arrive first in Uralic languages, then in Baltic languages.

In my view, a pre-proto and proto-Germanic developed out of the CWC IE in a wide region of what is now N Germany and W Poland, and spread from there both N and S via IE Sprachbund contact and trade. So, by the time Uralic speakers arrived at the beginning of the Nordic Bronze Age (~1,500 BCE), the local coastal IE dialect was likely proto-Germanic, especially due to increased Early Bronze Age trade with the SW Baltic and Southern Europe, and beyond.

If we give CWC IE about 1,000 years to split into its three main W and W/C European branches, this coincides with the often-cited ~1,500 BCE of the (definite) Celtic/Italic/Germanic split. Note that this does not mean there was no IE spoken in Europe before CWC, nor that dialects did not already split ~2,500 BCE in that region.

I don't know where you got this from, but any "Nordic" origin of Germanic was long discounted before German Nationalism and has been even more so, since. The only remnants of this antiquated Northern Germanic origin cult are found in the anglosphere and on Wikipedia. I don't know of any living linguist supporting this fairy tale.

The Nordic Bronze Age is clearly a northern expansion of the C/SE European Bronze age, and as such, proto-Germanic was introduced from N/EC Germany and W Poland there and then.

Most modern linguist agree that pre-proto and proto-Germanic developed in what is now N / NC Germany and W Poland, with an IE Sprachbund reaching a much wider area, including Scandinavia and the Baltics, Holland, parts of NE France, Belgium, S and SE Germany.

To batman:The continuity theories are methodologically false, because archaeologic or genetic continuity cannot prove the linguistic continuity. Just the opposite, if we think about the widespread language families: only in one area of tens of different areas are those language families original, everywhere else they have replaced other languages. http://www.elisanet.fi/alkupera/Uralic.html

Besides, continuity cannot exclude immigration, because usually continuity in some traits coexists with innovations in some other traits.

Moreover, modern genetic results have shown that there have occurred many, many waves of immigration into Finland. Haplogroup N1c1a-M178 (60 % of Finnish men) alone is represented by many different branches, all of which may represent a different wave of migration: Z1935 Ladogan, Karelian and Savonian branches; VL29 Chudes and Tawastians; L550 Baltic and Scandinavian branches.

Some of these N1c1a-branches may have brought the Saami and Finnic languages in Finland, probably assisted with some branches of other common haplogroups (I1, R1a1a, R1b).

At the present we know a lot about the ancient, since lost languages of North Europe: I collected the recent evidence in Finnish here:http://www.elisanet.fi/alkupera/Kielet_Suomessa_kautta_aikain.pdf

* 7300 BCE Humans repopulate Finland after the glaciers retreat (some sources quote 9300 BCE, but this appears to be an erroneous confusion of BP and BCE dates). Speaks lost Paleolithic language of Atlantic/Baltic/Northwest Africans expanding out of Franco-Cantabrian refugium.

* 5300 BCE Comb Ceramic culture, a fishing oriented hunter-gatherer culture emerges in Finland and becomes distinct from early Mesolithic Finland due to trade good exchange with Neolithic cultures in Europe. Some loan words related to trade goods may be acquired, but no language shift occurs.

* 2500-2300 BCE Finland's Kiukainen culture, derived from the Battle Axe culture that is derived from the Corded Ware culture arrives in Finland in a demic migration bringing with them a pre-Bronze Age package of domesticates plant farming, dairying and herding. Dairy farming extends to areas north of the Arctic Circle at this time. This gives rise to a language shift to an Indo-European language probably relate to the non-Slavic Baltic languages. Y-DNA R1a enters Finnish population genetics at this time, but does not overwhelm other Y-DNA haplogroups because the Neolithic package is not as dominant in Finland which is marginal for the production of Fertile Crescent derived domesticated crops and herd animals. Paleolithic language of Finland survives only as a substrate in this archaic Indo-European language.

* 1700-1500 BCE. Finnish Bronze Age arrives in Finland from Uralic population bringing widespread use of practical metal items and having a major demic impact. Previous Indo-European language ceases to be used and survives only as a substrate influence in Finnish and Saami languages. In the Saami, this Uralic population contributes about 5-8% of the gene pool in autosomal estimates of a contribution district from ancestral North Asian, mtDNA haplogroups D5 and Z which make up a similar percentage of Saami mtDNA with the mtDNA (also the Z1 subclade contribution dated to 2,000-3,000 years ago by mtDNA mutation rate dating, i.e. the Iron Age, a Finnish particular clade that emerges after the Uralic mtDNA Z contribution) and an Y-DNA legacy (e.g. Y-DNA haplogroup N1b and N1c1). These people may have been a sister population to the Dorset Paleoindians of North America.

The Finnish Iron Age began around 500 BCE and does not represent a major demic shift or language shift. Initially culture influences are from local ice age cultures; from around 0 CE to 400 CE, the cultural influences are mostly Roman; from around 400-575 CE (the Migration Period) the cultural and artifact influences are mostly from Eastern Germanic like the Goths, Visigoths and the Vandals; in the Merovingian period from 575 CE to 800 CE, the cultural orientation reorients itself to Western Europe were the Merovingian dynasty rules with the earliest Christian contacts at the tale end of this period.

The Migration period and the Merovingian period coincide historically with Slavic expansion into what is now Orthodox Christian Eastern Europe, but Slavic influence does not reach Finland until there are conflicts between Russian Novgorod and the Finnic tribes from the 11th or 12th century to the early 13th century. This end when Swedish-Russian treaty divides Finland into the northern border between Catholic Swedish Finland and Orthodox Christian Karelia in Treaty of Nöteborg in 1323 CE that holds until the Great Northern War of 1700 CE.

The dominant influence in Finland from 800 CE to 1700 CE comes from North Germanic Scandinavians, mostly from Finland. This influence, rather than resulting in language shift and replacement, however, led to separate Swedish, Finnish and Saami communities that had some bride exchange and geographic displacement, but did not wipe out the substrate Uralic language Finnish and Saami cultures.

Also, hunter-gatherers were almost exclusively U5. U5 is believed to be the oldest mtDNA haplogroup in Europe. And from modern populations, who have the highest frequency of U5 by a landslide?

It is not very informative to present population statistics on U5 as a monolithic group because it is more than 20,000 years old. If you look at its subclades, 40% of Finish U5 are in a single subclade U5b1b1a estimated to be about 4000 years old, and U5b1b1a is also found in eastern Europe. This is prabably a bronze age founder event, so a high frequency of U5b1b1a does not indicate a hunter-gatherer ancestry.

There's some problems with this result. His claims about the reach of the Sami don't fully fit archaeological research; small amounts of Germans settled in Finland during late medieval period, small and mainly in coastal towns but enough to influence place names even inland in places like Häme and even before the Swedish conquest there was cross-Baltic trade that brought traders and assumedly linguistic influences from the southern shore of the Baltic. Etc.

Such an IndoEuropean substrate, rather than some sort of loose, shared geo-genetic origin, was also my take on (other) linguistic evidence: a small uralic base vocabularity that included words that are difficult to absorb into another language, like water.

I think that the main problem here is mixing a Paleo-European language spoken in northern Europe BEFORE the Indo-European languages arrived and a Proto-Germanic language, developed in Germany (most likely by R1b Y people) AFTER the Indo-Europeans arrived (c. 2600 BC).

It sounds likely that a Paleo-European language was spoken in Finland before the Ugro-Finnic speakers arrived. It is even possible that an Indo-European language was spoken (some kind of Baltic) if Indo-Europeans did arrive earlier than Uralic speakers (which we don't know yet). But a Proto-Germanic (Indo-European) language sounds highly unlikely.

If proto-Germanic was introduced to Scandinavia from N/EC Germany and W Poland during the Bronze age, I think that words that are only found in Scandinavia, Lapland and Finland should be Palaeo-European words or loan words from Saami to Scandinavian languages and not IE-words.

Eurologist, you say that proto-Germanic developed out of the Corded Ware Culture and Baltic languages are intrusive to the Baltic area from the Southeast. I must say that I think that it is more plausible that the language of the Corded Ware culture was closer to Baltic languages than to Germanic languages, as Baltic languages are considered among the most archaic of the remaining IE languages. There are even minority scholars who argue that Baltic descended directly from Proto-Indo-European, without an intermediate common Balto-Slavic stage. In geographic terms, the Baltic languages were spoken over a larger area: West to the mouth of the Vistula river in present-day Poland, at least as far East as the Dniepr river in present-day Belarus.

I would like to know what words you mean when you say that this is also supported by proto- or early Germanic loanwords, which arrive first in Uralic languages, then in Baltic languages?

Another interesting point to note is that Old Prussians had a high percentage of N1c just as the Baltic people http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/28371-How-Old-Prussian-were-the-East-Prussian-Germans. So, it looks like N1c took part in the formation of the IE languages in the Eastern Corded Ware area.

Andrew, when you refer to Dorset Paleoindians, you should remember that Saqqaq yDNA was Q. D5 is a southern haplogroup and it cannot be connected with any arctic flows of people and the Saami Z haplotype is derived from a Ket haplotype, so its affiliation with Uralic languages is very dubious.

Batman, Sami motif is U5b1b1, and it is, in fact, quite close to La Braña mtDNA which is U5b2c1. Oleni Ostrov C1 is not found in any Uralic group but is found instead in Iceland. So again, there really isn’t any reason to connect Oleni Ostrov people with Saami or Finnic people. Neither Oleni Ostrov U4 haplotype has been found in modern Finns.

I personally consider this theory a joke, as well as the theory of a few years ago about the Odissey developed in the Baltic Sea.The proof that the Fenno-Ugrians came before the Indo-Europeans is resumed in the word "maa", remained pure in Finnish and in Estonian. Maa is the ground-which-gives-life (Germanic "Mann/Man", Italian "Mare", Hungarian "Magyar" and all mamma/mummy/maman etc. derive from "maa"). Germanics call this idea "Land", literally meaning ground-where-to-live-in.As regards etymology, sometimes Fenno-Ugrians imported the names from other languages (and this is a further proof Fenno-Ugrians didn't move from their countries since always), but in other cases they are more "sincere". The main case is "Russia", which derives from a root meaning "Swedish gentleman" (in fact Sweden is called Ruotsi in Finland and Rootsi in Estonia), called by Fins and Estonians with the ancient name of Venedonians.It is true, in place-names some mistake should be corrected. For instance, in Finland the Baltic Sea is called "Eastern Sea" instead of "Western Sea", just because they copied by the Swedes.

Alberto, why do you consider Proto-Germanic “colonia” in Finland unlikely? There are placenames of Proto- and Northwest-Germanic origin in Finland, but so far no placenames of Baltic origin. Besides, there are NW-IE, Pre-Germanic, Palaeo-Germanic, Proto-Germanic, NW-Germanic etc. loanwords in both Finnic and Saami, so we have wide evidence about the Germanic presence at the adjacency.

It is even possible that the Germanic homeland was in Finland, because the contacts between Germanic and for example Celtic or Baltic started later than with Finnic and Saami! Althought it may also be, that it is just too difficult to distinguish early loanwords between these related languages from the inherited words.

'if that's the case (late arrival of IE and Finnish/Saami in Scandinavia), then what languages were spoken in N Europe before that scientific process requires hypothesis-data gathering-reevaluation of hypothesis-modify hypothesis"

All we can say is that it was probably 'pre-indoEuropean', now lost. One cannot hypothisize further about anything when there isn';t one iota of evidence. That is called honest scholarship. You might just have to accept the fact that we can only go so far, at least for langauges in northern Europe. Anything else is nothing but speculation, which is irresposible, lest we go down the direction of absurd excurses like Vennemans' "Vasconic" theory, etc.

Prehistoric Europe went from great diversity (hunter - gatherer period) to less diversity in recent prehistory. Heck even just prior to the Roman Expansion I'd hazard that large parts of Europe were still non-IE ! (as Don Ringe has pointed out in his language Blog)

But dont take my word for it. Several prominent scholars have said just that IE langauges like Germanic only recently (ie turn of the Common Era) spread into the Baltic and Scandinavia (contra the 19th century Romantic idea of a Scandinavian Germanic 'homeland' since 2500 BC) (eg Osten Dahl in the "Circum Baltic Languages" and Jorgen Udolph in 'The Nordic Langauges" volume 1). A similarly late date has been proposed for the advent of Saami in northern Europe (ie c. late 100s BC (!!) - Ante Aikio, I believe.

So there you go, About Time, it just takes a little study from people who actually know what they're talking about, and a little extra intelligence.

Eurologist:“Most modern linguist agree that pre-proto and proto-Germanic developed in what is now N / NC Germany and W Poland, with an IE Sprachbund reaching a much wider area, including Scandinavia and the Baltics, Holland, parts of NE France, Belgium, S and SE Germany.”

How, then, can you explain the continuous stages of Germanic loanwords in Finnic and Sámi? Northwest Indo-European, Pre-Germanic, Palaeo-Germanic, Early and Late Proto-Germanic, Northwest Germanic...http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/petkalli/mattut.pdf

What evidence do we have for Germany or Poland as the Germanic homeland? Loanwords between Germanic and Celtic or Baltic or Slavic are much later than those between Germanic and Finnic or Sámi!

Pille Ploompuu:“I personally consider this theory a joke, as well as the theory of a few years ago about the Odissey developed in the Baltic Sea. The proof that the Fenno-Ugrians came before the Indo-Europeans is resumed in the word "maa", remained pure in Finnish and in Estonian. Maa is the ground-which-gives-life (Germanic "Mann/Man", Italian "Mare", Hungarian "Magyar" and all mamma/mummy/maman etc. derive from "maa"). Germanics call this idea "Land", literally meaning ground-where-to-live-in.”

Actually this is not a scientific counter-argument. Every language has a word for ‘land, ground’, and that many Uralic languages have reserved it has no power to prove that they were there first. How it even could testify that?

Jatsi Astren:“Timing of kaali-crater (Estonia) tells when Finns(and language) were already in the area. Incident can be found in the Finnish gods list written by Mikael Agricola.”

Actually myths or names for mythological incidents or characters cannot testify early presence of that language, in which they are found now, because myths and mythological names are very often borrowed from one language community to another.

If you read my posts, we are actually in wide agreement on many things. The way I see it, Corded Ware widely introduced large areas of Europe to IE (although some regions likely already spoke IE, before). This means that 3,000 - 2,500 BCE, there was a new lingua franca around, and one that very likely soon was also spoken by the fishermen and farmers all around the Baltic, as new waves of IE farmers arrived in Finland and surroundings during this time, because the climate warmed. The entire Scandinavian and much of the Baltic region then formed a Sprachbund with N Germany and W Poland - so, language innovations from the center spread around via trade, and even more so since the beginning of the Nordic Bronze Age - with documented trade routes from the south.This is how the various stages of Germanic arrived into Finnic and Sami - with the earliest PIE loan words likely from earlier contact in the extreme E CWC and N Pontic region, and the earliest Baltic loanwords from the start of the Finno-Ugric speakers' journey.

Since you can really only talk of a well-defined proto- or pre-proto Germanic from about ~1,700 BCE onwards, this ties in nicely with proposed Nordic Bronze Age arrival of Finno-Ugric speakers in Finland.

Sami motif is U5b1b1, and it is, in fact, quite close to La Braña mtDNA which is U5b2c1

Their common ancestor U5b is dated to about 23,000 years ago, so they are very distantly related, and are separated by the LGM refugium and subequent migrations. U5b1b1 is found today throughout Europe and North Africa.

Eurologist:“The entire Scandinavian and much of the Baltic region then formed a Sprachbund with N Germany and W Poland - so, language innovations from the center spread around via trade, and even more so since the beginning of the Nordic Bronze Age - with documented trade routes from the south.This is how the various stages of Germanic arrived into Finnic and Sami - with the earliest PIE loan words likely from earlier contact in the extreme E CWC and N Pontic region, and the earliest Baltic loanwords from the start of the Finno-Ugric speakers' journey.”

The problem here is: why we don’t see old contacts between Germanic and Baltic, Germanic and Slavic or Germanic and Celtic? Besides, it would be the most economic solution to locate the original homeland to the area where there is loanword evidence from numerous stages at different times, including the oldest ones.

The more there are loanword layers, the more improbable it is that all these layers have ended up in Finland from somewhere else, without leaving any traces in their supposed homeland.

Those are no problems, at all. Baltic speakers came late to the Baltics. Slavic speakers were in an area from at most SE Poland to the Ukraine - rather remote from Germanic speakers, and at first separated from them by FU and later Baltic speakers. The Celtic that was spoken on the left bank of the Rhine simply did not survive - however, we do have a good number of early German loanwords into very early French.

Eurologist, if you believe that Germanic was born in Germany-Poland region, then you should explain how it could have had early contacts with Finnic and Saami but did not have as early contacts with Baltic, Slavic or Celtic, which were spoken much closer to Germany-Poland.

'if you believe that Germanic was born in Germany-Poland region, then you should explain how it could have had early contacts with Finnic and Saami but did not have as early contacts with Baltic, Slavic or Celtic, which were spoken much closer to Germany-Poland.'

Anybody familiar with Nakhleh et al.'s Perfect Phylogenetic Networks; A New Methodology For Reconstructing The Evolutionary History Of Natural Languages (2005) could correct you on this: proto-Germanic indeed had feasible contact zones with both proto-Celtic and proto-Baltic. Their work strongly suggest an early spatial continuum between Baltic and Slavic, and a feasible contact edge between proto-Slavic and proto-Tocharian what might suggest an early Kentum expansion node.Personally I am very much inclined to equate the formation of a Germanic block to the Northern Bronze Age, as much as the Celtic block should relate to the Atlantic Bronze Age. However, the Finnic evidence apparently point at an even earlier formation and expansion of proto-Germanic like languages in the wider region.

Rokus, that work of Nakhleh et al. is based on retained words. It could equally well be explained so that these word are inherited from Northwest Indo-European dialect. So it cannot undisputably testify about contacts between these branches.

More solid evidence would shared post-NW-IE sound changes or loanwords which show characteristics of certain branch.

"* 7300 BCE Humans repopulate Finland after the glaciers retreat (some sources quote 9300 BCE, but this appears to be an erroneous confusion of BP and BCE dates). Speaks lost Paleolithic language of Atlantic/Baltic/Northwest Africans expanding out of Franco-Cantabrian refugium."

Sorry to say, but this is pure speculation. Thus the rest of your time-line is gone.

Try answwering where the very first culture that reached Finland came from - and you'll end up in the district of Bromme-Ahrensburg, where the very FIRST community of epi-paleolithic/mesolithic cultures are found - north of the Meds...

Please also observe that this happened immediatly after the end of the Younger Dryas cold-period - which erased the last paleolitic populations of humans and mammoths from the entire Eurasian continent. Thus we may set a certain chronologu from the time 12.900 BP when the Laacher Zee volcano erupted and the worst period of the entire ice-time arose. By 12.500 BP there's hardly any larger mammals left - north of the Pyrenees, Alps, Caucasian and Anatolian mountains.

From 12.100 we see the first pioneers occur at the shores of NV Europe - in Bromme-Lyngby and Ahrensburg - from where they spread, both west, north, eats and south.

Thus we can see an eastern line moving to Poland (Swidrien) and Ukraine, as well as to Neva/Ladoga/Volga/Suomossalmi and Komsa - as one and the same techno-complex.

The Komsa-limb made it to the northern fringes of eastern "Finnmark" in todays Norway - as of 10.800 yrs BP (Sujala/Varanger).

Parallel in time we had the Bromme-Lyngby developing Hensbacka and Fosna, reaching the Northern tiers of the Scandinavian west-coast already at 11.500 yrs BP (Vega, Sarnes-2).

The western route to Nort Cape were - according to our present archaology - the faster one. In the following two millenias these two high-arctic culters develop many similar traits, for obvious reasons. Though, they still keept two different 'trade-routes down south: The Fosna-people kept getting theur flint from Denmark, the Komsa rather from Russia and the eastern Baltics.

Please note that the recent works on North European Mesolithic describes the evolution in these two branches as 'continous' down to the introduction of metals in the north, as of 4.500 BP - and the introduction of what we call "Arctic Bronze Age" - which is clearly separate from the "Nordic Bronze Age" that developed with/within the farming culture down south.

Since the menue changed - from reindeers, goats and sheep to cows and/or horses you may find that some of the old 'arctic' hg F (G,H,I,J), changed to adapt to a higher degree of milk-consumption - and the consequent selection into NEW R-groups, such as R1a and R1b. The same change of menue can also help explain the pre-selection for mt-dna subgroups of U, such as U5/K and HV.

Checking the present world of cow-farming and lactasse-persistens you may get a clear view of where this mutaion arose - from which it spread as climate and topography allowed.

At this page you may compare that with the diversity of the presnt cattle-types - once domesticatedfrom the NV European Aurochs:

The implication of this is that the proto-germanic population and language indeed developed with the agriculture - side by side with the proto-fennic languages, that chracterized the early HG and pastoralists. Thus we got a eat-west division already during the pioneer-period of the mesolithics - that consequently developed into a oriental inland-culture along the Eurasian pine-woods - and a occidental culture that developed along the coastlines and large riverines along the Baltic Ocean as well as the Atlantic facade. Thus we may explain the occidental languges as 'proto-german' and the oriental tounge as 'proto-uralic'.

Besides we may explain the 'leap-frog' model - bringing the arctic food-produce to the Black Sea and the Meds, where the paleolithic languages formed into the Greek and Roman languages, accordingly.

That these peoples used sea-faring boats - as well as skis and sledges - already at 12.000 BP is already well known. That they are recorded in Greek and Egyptian annals all the more enticing.

"How, then, can you explain the continuous stages of Germanic loanwords in Finnic and Sámi? Northwest Indo-European, Pre-Germanic, Palaeo-Germanic, Early and Late Proto-Germanic, Northwest Germanic..."

By a common origin - as explained by Erik Snellman and some other, Scandianvian linguists.

@ Kristiina:

The unique same-motif is y-dna Z. The mt-dna U51 is one of the most clear-cut western - that apparently have married vendic (finnish) traders and mnigratorss that reached north to Lappland as well as south to Baskeerland and western Meds. Seemingly they originated from the area of Oresund, between Denmark abd Sweden - where they are still found.Also.

@Jaska

# "The continuity theories are methodologically false"

No. It's your counter-arguments that are false. Try using Ockhams razor and you'll see it yourself. The basic outline of Alinei and Wiik is actually proven - eventhough there are still questions to be answered. This disertaitoon doesn't even consider the rigth questions.

# "Moreover, modern genetic results have shown that there have occurred many, many waves of immigration into Finland."

Another prejudice.

"Haplogroup N1c1a-M178 (60 % of Finnish men) alone is represented by many different branches, all of which may represent a different wave of migration: Z1935 Ladogan, Karelian and Savonian branches; VL29 Chudes and Tawastians; L550 Baltic and Scandinavian branches."

Which proves they have a common ancestry - that all. Just like the regional 'houses' of nobility one could find in the old Kingdoms of antiquety, when the various y-dna-lines would originate from a comoon castle - to constitute a 'kingdom' and 'A people'. Compare to the tribal-system still known from the 19th century Red Indians...

# "Some of these N1c1a-branches may have brought the Saami and Finnic languages in Finland, probably assisted with some branches of other common haplogroups (I1, R1a1a, R1b)."

In a world where everything is relative and nothing is distinguisible you may turn and twist qa handful of facts any way you like. Don't forget there is three degrees of lies: 1. White lies. 2. Black lies 3. Statistics.

# "At the present we know a lot about the ancient, since lost languages of North Europe"

What you referee to is not empirical knowledge - but pont-of-viewas built on comparations - and consequent opinions.

"Anybody familiar with Nakhleh et al.'s Perfect Phylogenetic Networks; A New Methodology For Reconstructing The Evolutionary History Of Natural Languages (2005) could correct you on this: proto-Germanic indeed had feasible contact zones with both proto-Celtic and proto-Baltic."

As you may distinguish genomes I work with phonemes and morphemes. The phylogenetic theory of Nakbah is far from perfect.

For instance: The much used term "proto-Baltic" is senseless, since the language called "Baltic" is a small minority-language that migrated into the Daugva/Dvina-area with traders from a Persian/Indo-Arian origin - at the end of the 1st millenia.

Similar to the 'proto-slavic' - that arose as a lingua franca around the Black Sea - tx to the expansipn of the Greek-Ortoodx church and trade-system in the middle of the 1st Millenia.

Since then it expanded along the trade-routes to the west, north-west and north of the Black DSea - ss Konstyantinopel after Justinian - and the writing-system of Method and Cyril - grew in influence, just as the latin languages grew in the western hemisphere - as the new lingua franca - to Spain and France - to finally compromise and combine with the Nordic languages in Nordmandy and England - creating the proto-form of todays 'English'.

Also, what are your thoughts wrt theory that there was a Finnish enclave near lower Vistula (Pomerania)? There is hg Q there and some deeply rooted R1a clades. http://www.forumbiodiversity.com/showthread.php/15056-Kashubians-what-does-their-Y-chromosme-haplogroups-tell-us-about-their-origins

Your private stance on Baltic may be much more off the mark than on Slavic. Still, whatever the history of both language groups, according to Nakhleh et al.'s study, the behaviour of Baltic and Slavic is quite "treelike". They only fail to find a consistent case for "proto-Balto-Slavic" interacting on other language groups. A possible explanation could be the Baltoslavic unity is based on long time loose contacts on a geographic continuum and convergence.

Instead, Germanic behaves radically untreelike, suggesting lots of contact. West Germanic even appears a merger between two related language groups ("path" next to "foot"). So how "continuous" the stages of Germanic loanwords in Finnic and Sámi could possibly be? Maybe it would be rigth to change some concepts and allow a more basal role for some Germanic features that might conciliate the Uralic evidence. This may also be an important step towards understanding why in some studies non-IE languages like Basque and Chinese seem to derive more basal vocabularity from Germanic than any other IE language or group.

Batman:“The implication of this is that the proto-germanic population and language indeed developed with the agriculture - side by side with the proto-fennic languages, that chracterized the early HG and pastoralists. Thus we got a eat-west division already during the pioneer-period of the mesolithics - that consequently developed into a oriental inland-culture along the Eurasian pine-woods - and a occidental culture that developed along the coastlines and large riverines along the Baltic Ocean as well as the Atlantic facade. Thus we may explain the occidental languges as 'proto-german' and the oriental tounge as 'proto-uralic'.”

If you are claiming that Uralic language was present in Northern or Central Europe during the Mesolithic, you are wrong – linguistic results clearly disprove that hypothesis.

Batman:“By a common origin - as explained by Erik Snellman and some other, Scandianvian linguists.”

Batman:“No. It's your counter-arguments that are false. Try using Ockhams razor and you'll see it yourself. The basic outline of Alinei and Wiik is actually proven - eventhough there are still questions to be answered. This disertaitoon doesn't even consider the rigth questions.”

Are you illiterate? Please try to disprove any argument presented here:http://www.elisanet.fi/alkupera/Uralic.html

Archaeological or genetic continuity cannot prove linguistic continuity, and that is a scientific fact. Please explain how they even theoretically could.

Batman:” Which proves they have a common ancestry - that all.”

Those different N1c1-lineages have spread at different times though different routes. You cannot disprove that.

Batman:“For instance: The much used term "proto-Baltic" is senseless, since the language called "Baltic" is a small minority-language that migrated into the Daugva/Dvina-area with traders from a Persian/Indo-Arian origin - at the end of the 1st millenia.”

The Finnish yDNA is obviously not coming from North Germany – Denmark/South Sweden area. If there had been s significant male gene flow from this area into the Finns, haplogroup R1b would be much more frequent. At the moment, it is close to 0% in most areas. However, Finns share I1 with Germanic people, and the Finnish-specific subclades (3500 BC) are as old as Swedish/Norwegian subclades (3400 BC) and are probably not coming from the west, as I1 was not found in Mesolithic Swedes. I think that a significant part of the so called Germanic loan words should come from this Germanic-Finnic connection, and I am not so sure that I1 males spoke an IE language when they arrived in Northern Europe.

I checked today the Family Tree R1a1 site (https://www.familytreedna.com/public/r1a/) and all Finnish R1a1 subclades. The oldest Finnish-specific subclades (Ostrobothnian and Carelian?) come from Eastern Europe (probably from the Baltic area), and, generally, R1a1 subclades of Slavic and Baltic origin are the most frequent among the Finns (M458, Z280 BALTS CTS3402 and Z92 CTS456). Germanic subclades are usually found on the coast (often among Swedish Finns), but also in the north, and in this case they often seem to come from Norway or North Sweden. Taking into account this, I wonder if you want to claim that yDNA I1 brought IE languages (=Proto-Germanic) and the Corded Ware culture to Poland and spread from there to Finland and Germany/Scandinavia, and only later on R1a1-Z280 and N1c arrived in the Baltic area introducing a Baltic language in the Baltic area and a Uralic language in Finland. In any case, Finns seem to share their R1a1 subclades and yDNA N1c with the Balts and I1 with the Germanic people.

According to the old Scandianvian historians, such as Messenius and Munch, the term "Wend" actually refered to the uralic speakers - from the "Qwens" in the nroth to the "Vistulan Veneti" in the south.

Thus there where a 'sprachbund' from the south-bound Torne/Torni River to the northbound Wizla/Vistula/Weichsel. East of this line - dividing the Baltic in two, it seems to have been an uralic basis - while the western part developed the "gottonic" or "german" language-group.

The same picture of the Eastern Baltic have been laid out by modern professors of history as well - such as Kyösti Julku and Marti Klinge. According to Ojanen and Tengsatröm there seem to have been a finnish kingdom at the centre of it all, most probably placed in the Finnish Bay - where the long lines of the old trade could meet - connecting northern Fenno-Scandia with central Europe, as well as the Volga and Ob trade-routes with Ösel/Gotland/Denmark and NW Europe.

Consequently there have been "vendic" trade-posts ('colonies') in the west and south-west, as well as gothic trade-stations in the east and south-east. Vend-syssel and the Venetian bay are two such phenomenons. According to Caesars "Bello Gallico" they were also having coastal populations in Vallonia (Belgium).

The regular trade across the Baltic is anyhow a well-proven fact - starting no later than 8.000 yrs ago. Seemingly we have had BY-LINGUAL populations involved to master and develop theese communications.

@ Rokus

If you look into the Eurasiatic language-thesis you may find that the phylognetic quesation is far from finalized.

The modified nostratic theory starts getting close though. Looking at the division of Centum/Satem for instance, you may find that the Uralian language have both - as in Kunta/Sata. Same phonology, same morphology and identical semantics...

Sorry for double posting, but you should read this on Eupedia site (http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_I1_Y-DNA.shtml):

Of the 28% of I1 in Finland, 80% belong to the exclusively Finnish L287 and L300 subclades, while the rest (5%) generally resemble more closely Swedish I1. These are typically found on the west and south-west coast of Finland, where Swedes have settled in historical times and where Swedish is still spoken. This is also where most of the R1b (3.5%) and Scandinavian R1a-Z282 (3%) is to be found. The Scandinavian I1 in Finland is found at a similar proportion to R1b and R1a as in Sweden. In contrast, Finnish I1 is found in all the country, where hardly any Germanic Y-DNA is present. This is another confirmation that the I1 in Finland is pre-Germanic, pre-Bronze Age, and consequently of Mesolithic origin.

Now that I1 has not been found in ancient samples in Germany and Sweden but instead in Hungary, there is no point to argue over its Mesolithic origin in Europe, but the interesting thing is to ponder about where in Europe I1 was found during the post-Ice Age period and what was the language spoken among them.

Thank you Jaska! If I understood correctly, the oldest R1a haplotypes in Finland are A2 Finland and A2* Finnic and A Balto-Polish and their origin is not Germanic but Balto-Polish. The history behind the words Wend, Ventä and Venäjä is fascinating, and here again, it is not a Germanic but (West) Slavic connection.

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@ About Time - if you can't test a hypothesis, it's not science. Therefore this language speculation is just that.

This one is pretty tenuous even ludicrous since IE has a huge element similar to finnish in it apparently from its genesis.

In these language maunderings much like the coincidental evidence of current DNA locations, you can always turn around and argue the exact opposite just as easily. That is, that the supposed borrowing has the opposite explanation, which is definitely the most likely in this case. Probably through a third source.

But again who knows, it's not like we are ever going to find 5k-10k year old writings to know for sure, and without that we can never be very certain of anything.

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